Board game club session: Quackle!, Great Wall of China, Imperial

Excellent session at the board game club today, I got to play everything I wanted!

Quackle!, maybe better known as Snorta! for you foreign folks, was a silly game. It's nice, but I much prefer Halli Galli when it comes to games like this. Quackle! seems to require a very specific atmosphere (read: very giggly); now our game fell a bit flat. Wasn't exactly a source of riotous laughter. Well, I've played it, I can review it and somebody bought it from me, so I'm happy.

I finally got to play a complete game of Great Wall of China. We fudged the ending a bit, the Finnish translation I have is a bit unclear on that, but it didn't matter. The game was fun, full of excitement, tough choices and difficult trade-offs. Quality Knizia, I think. The game works really well with five, and we were able to play the game fast enough this time. Excellent game in a small box.

Then, the main course: Imperial. The game that takes everything that's good in Antike and builds on that! The rondel works well, the stock market is fluid, countries change hands - brilliant game. We had three players and we played the rules as written, but with the advanced setup. I enjoyed it a lot.

It's an easy game to play, especially after Antike, and I did well, too. The movement of armies had just the right amount of focus - it wasn't that big a deal in the end, but you could do clever things with them. Controlling the right countries at the right time is what counts, of course.

It was a pleasure to play with swift players (Olli M. and Joona), we got through the whole deal in just 90 minutes. It was a blast. Very good game, this one I definitely want to play again.